The Return of the Black Pharaoh
by Strike3
Summary: Lara Croft vs the Cthulhu Mythos. Enough said!


Tomb Raider  
The Return of the Black Pharaoh  
  
[This Tomb Raider story is inspired by the Mythos stories: Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, by H.P. Lovecraft and Harry Houdini; and Fane of the Black Pharaoh, by Robert Bloch.]  
  
The young but renowned archaeologist, Lara Croft, makes her way through the streets of Cairo. It is night, the thin sliver of the moon above is obscured by heavy clouds, and there are very few streetlamps in this area of the city. The native quarters are quiet at this time of night, yet when she looks around she still sees furtive figures moving from shadow to shadow. Few of them walk with her confident and purposeful stride, but then, few of them carry a pair of 9mm automatic pistols at their waist.  
Eventually, she arrives in a dingy courtyard. Looking around, she sees that the area is empty of any other occupants. She then walks over to an ancient well in one corner of the courtyard.  
Lara leans over the well and thrusts one arm inside. Feeling around, she locates a pair of loose bricks on the inside of the well. She presses one, then the other. She then steps back as, with a loud grating sound, the stone ground before the well splits open, revealing a set of stairs leading down.  
Lara reaches back over her shoulder and, with practiced ease, digs out a flashlight from one of the pockets in her backpack. She then walks forward, switches on the flashlight and shines it down the stairs. But there is only darkness, with no sign of an end.  
"I know what you seek, effendi, but you will never find it without my aid."  
Lara spins around toward the voice, silently cursing herself for getting distracted. In front of her stands a middle-eastern male. His clothes are dusty and sweat-stained. His eyes twinkle mischievously and he smirks at her, but he does not appear to be armed. Nevertheless, Lara places one hand upon a pistol, cautiously.  
"And just what is that you think I seek." Lara replies, in her cultured English accent.  
"You seek the tomb of Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh, he who tried to subvert the worship of the rightful Gods of Egypt with that of older, darker gods, and was cast down for his blasphemy, his name stricken from our histories. Few of even the most learned archaeologists even know the name; I wonder how one such as you could know such a secret."  
"Few archaeologists have studied De Vermis Mysteriis." Lara replies.  
"Ah yes," the Arab muses, "the Mysteries of the Worm, by the mad seer Ludwig von Prinn. He spent several years in this country, unearthing many of its secrets. You have obviously had the good fortune to study a genuine copy. That would have told you of Nephren-Ka, his worship of the dark messenger Nyarlathotep, and of the Walls of Truth, but tell me, how exactly did you locate this entrance to the tomb?"  
"I managed to obtain the diary of Captain Carteret."  
"Indeed, the captain came very close to locating the tomb, but he apparently disappeared before he ever had the chance to reveal its true location."  
"True," Lara confirms, "but his diary recounts his discoveries accurately, and I simply completed the job."  
"Impressive, but that is only the beginning." The Arab tells her. "You have only found the entrance to the tomb. To find the tomb itself, you will need a guide."  
"Are you saying you have been down there? That you have been down to the tomb itself?"  
For reply, the Arab pulls out a small metal object from under his shirt and tosses it to her. She catches it with one hand, and shines her flashlight on it. Her eyes widen in recognition.  
"The Seal of Nephren-Ka! This could only have come from the tomb itself. This means that somebody has been down there, and somebody has come back out."  
"That somebody is me, effendi. I do not have the resources to profit from such a discovery, and I do not trust my government. But if you promise to allow me to share in the rewards that we can bring out from the tomb, then I will show you the way."  
Lara narrows her eyes. She doesn't trust this smirking Arab in the slightest, and his eagerness to show her the way into a tomb that she has already found is suspicious at best. Nevertheless, it won't be the first time she has used a guide, and they can come in useful sometimes, so long as she doesn't let her guard down.  
"Very well," she waves him forward toward the stairs, "you lead the way."  
The Arab steps past her, heads down the stairs and Lara follows behind. When she is twice her own height beneath the ground, the Arab stops and looks back at her.  
"To your left you will find a depression on the wall. Press it, and the ground will seal back up behind us. We don't want anyone else finding the tomb before we are ready to reveal it."  
Lara frowns suspiciously, but his argument makes sense. She feels around on the left wall, finds the depression and presses it. With a loud rumble and a shower of dust, the ground does indeed close back up above them. Now in complete darkness broken only by the flashlight in Lara's hands, the two of them continue down the stairs.  
For a long time she descends, following the Arab down thousands of steps, until finally they reach the bottom. Lara follows him past a pair of enormous silver gates and they enter a massive subterranean chamber. Burning torches line the walls, illuminating the whole cavern, revealing the hundreds of sarcophagi that line the walls. All of the sarcophagi are carved into the images of monstrous beastlike figures and demonic visages.  
"The followers of Nephren-Ka," the Arab murmurs, "who were entombed here with their master."  
The Arab walks over to the far side of the cavern, and Lara follows after, coming to a stop before a pair of enormous statues of black stone, towering high above her. They are carved to represent hairless baboons, facing each other, their paws raised to strike. And when she looks up into their faces she sees that they are blind; eyeless and blind.  
"The Blind Apes of Truth," Lara murmurs to herself, "whose wild flailings represent a destiny that will sweep aside the dreams of man and god alike."  
Lara follows the Arab between the two enormous statues and enters into a long, downward-sloping corridor that disappears ahead into darkness. Lara shines her flashlight on one wall and discovers a heavy crimson curtain hanging along it. Upon the other wall, however, is an intricate mural, carved in accurate, horrid detail.  
"My God." Lara whispers, horrified. "The Walls of Truth!"  
The first image is that of old man crawling inside his own sarcophagus to die. Then come images of his followers being interred in their own sarcophagi by the few survivors. Then come images of things that occurred elsewhere.  
As Lara follows the Arab down the corridor, the history of Egypt and the world is played out on the wall to her left. She sees the birth of a messiah, the treachery of his followers and his agonized crucifixion; she sees the rise of the Roman Empire and its subsequent fall; she sees the Dark Ages enfold the world with ignorance and barbarism; she sees the Crusades sweep across the middle-east, converting people to the One Faith by fire and sword; she sees countless women being burnt at the stake; she sees a Great War sweep across the world, only to be followed by another, even more horrifying war; she sees entire cities incinerated; she sees massive towers being destroyed by giant flying machines, murdering thousands.  
All of this, all these images spreading unbroken along the seemingly endless wall, is painted by a single hand. That is unmistakable; all the artwork is in the same style. One man did all of this, and he did it without rest, without pause. All the images run into each other, there is no break, no point where the brush was lifted off and replaced.  
Mixed in with the world-shaking historical images, Lara notes other, seemingly less-important images. She sees an armoured knight discovering an ancient tomb, only to be garrotted from behind by a small robed man. Later, she sees another similar image, of a man in Elizabethan costume leaning over a mummy-case, only to be stabbed in the back from behind. Shortly before the images of the first Great War, she sees a depiction of several French soldiers stumbling across a tomb at the heart of a catacomb, only to ambushed and slaughtered by robed figures.  
Finally, Lara approaches the end of the corridor. Ahead is a doorway that glows with a red light from within. On the wall to her left, she stares at an image of herself, a perfect reflection in every way, with the Arab standing just behind her in the corridor. After that image, a crimson curtain hangs over the remainder of the murals, running down to the end of the hall, above the doorway ahead, and across to the opposite wall, to join with the other red curtain there.  
The Arab steps up beside her.  
"It is midnight. As the current high priest of the cult of Nephren- Ka, it is my task to draw back the curtain a little every day, to receive knowledge of the future that was bestowed upon our lord by the god Nyarlathotep. Come, effendi, would you not like to see the future?"  
The Arab reaches up with one hand and draws back the curtain a little further, and at the same time with the other hand he reaches inside his shirt and draws out a long knife, lifting it up to thrust into Lara Croft's spine.  
But then the Arab freezes, his eyes widening in horror greater than that Lara showed when she first saw the Walls of Truth. He stares at the wall, not even noticing the muzzle of the 9mm pistol Lara is pointing at his face.  
Upon the wall ahead of him is an image, not of a female gun-toting archaeologist being stabbed to death by a smirking Arab, but instead the image is that of the Arab dead on the floor at the archaeologist's feet, with a bloody hole between his eyes.  
"Impossible!" the Arab moans.  
"It does not have to end this way." Lara tells him. "Just put the knife down and walk away."  
"It is the future." The Arab hisses. "It cannot be changed. It must be this way."  
The Arab lifts up his knife and charges at her, howling. Lara pulls the trigger.  
The Arab falls down dead at her feet, a bloody hole between his eyes.  
Lara holsters her pistol. She looks back up the corridor and considers retreating for a moment. But only for a moment. Instead she walks to the end of the corridor, past the images of the future still shrouded in red velvet mystery, and passes through the doorway.  
  
Lara makes her way through a vast catacomb, a maze of stone passageways lit by burning braziers along the walls.  
Most explorers would have become hopelessly lost after only a short while, but Lara has developed a flawless sense of direction. That is not the only challenge she encounters, however. In many corridors she is forced to evade or disarm numerous traps; swinging blades, sliding floors, covered pits, crushing walls, and so on. Fortunately, the traps are nothing she cannot handle.  
Eventually she comes to heart of the catacomb, an enormous central chamber lit by glowing braziers. Gems, golden statuettes, ancient tomes and priceless antiquities line the walls.  
At the back of the chamber is a massive statue, reaching all the way up to the ceiling. It is only a vague and unfinished sculpture, badly outlined, yet it seems to represent a terrible humanoid beast with three legs, bat-like wings and a single monstrous tentacle for a face.  
At the centre of the chamber is a single sarcophagus upon a pedestal, lying flat. Lara cautiously approaches.  
She steps up onto the pedestal and stands over the sarcophagus. Upon it is carved the image of a handsome Egyptian pharaoh, his face relaxed and peaceful, yet still managing to exude an aura of palpable evil. Examining the sides of the sarcophagus, Lara finds that it is locked.  
Shrugging, Lara shoots the locks, shattering them. She then leans against the lid of the sarcophagus and shoves it over with all her athletically-toned strength.  
The lid slides off the sarcophagus and crashes to the floor. Lara then stands up and looks inside.  
"Typical." She murmurs to herself.  
Within the sarcophagus, there is no cloth-wrapped mummified pharaoh's corpse. Instead, there is only another set of stairs, heading down into the earth.  
This time, Lara seriously considers heading back the way she came. But after a few moments taking stock of her supplies, she swings her feet over the edge of the sarcophagus and heads down the stairs, down into the darkness below.  
  
Having made her way through another carven catacomb, Lara comes out into another massive subterranean chamber, one even larger than the temple of Nephren-Ka that she had explored earlier. She shines her flashlight around, and discovers enormous columns, wider than she is tall, lining the chamber. Shining her flashlight up, the ceiling disappears into darkness, as do the tops of the columns. The far side of the cavern cannot be seen.  
Lara walks up to a column and examines it with her flashlight. The base of each one is engraved with strange hieroglyphs. Yet despite her mastery of the ancient pictorial language, she cannot translate it. She wonders for a moment if these are hieroglyphs at all, or perhaps carvings that represent something else entirely.  
Lara walks past the column and keeps walking until her flashlight shines past another set of columns on the far side and finally reflects off the far wall. Lara heads back until she judges herself to be standing in the middle of the chamber. It is then that the smell hits her.  
It is a horrid stench, one that seems both familiar and terribly alien at the same time. The putrid, musky, sour taste of it in her throat makes her want to gag, yet she inhales it and concentrates, attempting to identify the chillingly familiar scent.  
And it hits her. This is the stench of ancient death, a scent she has experienced countless times in her career; but never like this. This scent is stronger, and it is.different.somehow, as though the death is of something she has never experienced before.  
The stench wafts past her face in a light breeze. Curious, and with one direction being as good as another, Lara heads towards the source of the horrid wind.  
The massive columns line up to either side of her as she walks along the chamber. Eventually, she comes to the end of the cavern. Where the walls meet to either side of her, she can just see a pair of staircases heading upwards. In the wall in front of her, there is a massive aperture, an opening the size of a semi-detached house. From within the night-black depths of the aperture, the alien and deathly stench pours forth. Lara covers her mouth with her hand and tries not to retch.  
From behind her, she hears a noise. Lara spins round. The sound is faint at first, but it grows louder, comes closer. It takes her a few moments to identify the sound, but it soon comes to her.  
It is the piping of flutes.  
From the far end of the cavern, orange light can be seen to approach, along with the piping, and as it does so, it is soon joined by other sounds; of cymbals clashing, of bells chiming, of horns blaring, and other more ungodly sounds. Soon the far side of the cavern begins to reverberate with the horrid music, as both the noise and the light continues to come closer.  
Lara rushes over to the nearest column and hides behind it, drawing out a pistol for defence. As she shelters behind the column, keeping it between her and the approaching noise, the ungodly music is joined by another sound.  
That of marching feet.  
But it is a marching unlike any she has ever heard. Along with the stamping of feet, she can also hear the tapping of hooves, the clacking of claws, the slithering of legless bodies, and other equally inhuman sounds. Yet they all march in perfect unison, keeping time with the awful music. No animals, no matter how trained, could keep to such rhythm.  
As the orange light sweeps over her, it flickers and she identifies it as torchlight. As the marching horde approaches, her gaze rests on the opposite wall, and the horror of what she sees almost overwhelms her.  
With the column still between her and the horde, the burning torches they hold cast shadows upon the wall - monstrous, inhuman shadows. Shadows of men with the heads of crocodiles, of jackals with human hands, of snakes with human arms, of legs without bodies and bodies without legs.  
As the first line of the horde comes level with her position, it comes to an abrupt stop. Two shadows, appearing mostly human, step forward and stop before the aperture. They then turn and face the horde, who all kneel, or similarly prostrate themselves, depending on the shape of their horrid forms.  
"Soon the stars will be right." One of the figures speaks, his sepulchral voice resonating throughout the cavern. The Most of the words are in Egyptian, a language in which Lara is quite fluent. "Soon, the Great Old Ones will return, to bring an end to this cycle of life and begin existence anew. Soon, dread R'lyeh will rise from the depths, to drown the world in an ocean of blood. Soon, Yog-Sothoth shall slip in through the spaces between, to open the gates to the realms Beyond. Soon, Shub- Niggurath shall breed a whole race of her Young, to replace the life that currently poisons and infests this planet.  
"And soon," the figure continues, "we shall rise up from the depths of the earth to sweep across the world, to take our rightful place as masters of the planet. The Black Sphinx shall come forth and devour the soul of Egypt, while the body will be left to us. We will slay the race of Man in the name of the Outer Gods, and sing our prayers to the Great Messenger, who is their heart and soul. Our darkest desires will become reality, anything we can conceive will be our reward. Such are the promises of the Crawling Chaos! Ia! Nyarlathotep!"  
The horde chants in unison, and the cavern reverberates through the whole cavern. "Ia! Nyarlathotep!"  
The shadowy figure, and the one beside him, both appear to receive some kind of container from their followers. They then turn round and begin to throw things into the aperture, chanting all the while.  
"Come forth, O Great Beast. Come forth, Black Sphinx, and devour the soul of Egypt."  
Gazing upon the shadowy reflections upon the wall, Lara sees that these.offerings.are of an unspeakably foul type. She holds a hand up to her mouth, to keep from throwing up in horror and disgust at the thought of the vile sacrifice.  
After the last of the offerings are tossed into the aperture, the horde rises up and, resuming the cacophonous and awful music, they turn around and march back the way they came. Lara remains absolutely still where she is, until the last sound of the horde has faded into the distance.  
But still the cavern remains fully lit. Lara looks down the chamber and sees that many of the braziers on the wall have been lit. Walking round the column, she also sees braziers on the opposite wall, as well as another large brazier mounted just before the aperture. Despite the blaze in this central brazier, the enormous aperture remains black as the darkest night.  
Lara gazes around, torn by indecision. She has absolutely no intention of entering the aperture, having no desire whatsoever to discover what kind of awful entity would demand such sacrifices. But she considers heading up one of the staircases, towards the sane world above. However, the innate curiosity and fearless thrill seeking nature that has driven her ever since her plane went down in the Himalayas, impels her in the other direction, to follow after the monstrous horde.  
In the end, there is no contest. Lara turns away from the aperture and heads down the cavern. But before she makes it past the second column, she hears a deep hissing from behind her.  
She slowly turns round. From within the darkness of the aperture, something moves. The foul air in front of it swirls, and then something leaps out.  
Lara's stomach churns at the horrid sight of the creature. It is the size and the rough shape of a mutated hippopotamus, yet it appears to have no legs, merely landing straight on its belly. And rather than having a single head, there are five attached side-by-side to a trunk-like body, the rear of which reaches back into the aperture.  
The monster hisses at her with its five heads, but does not approach. Indeed, Lara can't see how it can possibly move, with no legs and such an inflexible body.  
But then another, similar creature leaps out and lands beside and slightly in front of it. This one also has a disgustingly warped body with five heads. The rear of its body also remains back in the aperture, twisting upwards strangely.  
And then the rest of the beast comes forth.  
Lara's mouth opens and a silent scream catches in her throat, as she realises the horrific, cosmically fearful truth of the beast. For it is but a single beast, of which the horrid five-headed creature, and the twin beside it, are but the merest forepaws.  
Far above her, at the summit of the aperture, an indescribably horrid tentacled muzzle reaches out into the cavern, attached to a mutated neck that ripples horribly. As the head comes level with its forepaws, the front of its body is revealed, and the grotesque attachments of the beast are revealed. It moves forward, its forelegs leaping up and landing closer to the backtracking Lara, and its hind legs leave the aperture. These limbs are even more twisted than the fore, as they each bear more than a dozen snapping heads, twisting to stare at her as they land on the ground. Finally, the beast's tail comes weaving out of the darkness, a twisted thing tipped with its own trio of relatively small fanged heads.  
Lara stares at the Black Sphinx and knows that she is in for the fight of her life.  
The Sphinx lifts up one of its multi-headed paws and thrusts it down towards her. Lara somersaults backwards, while the paw slams into the ground where she had just stood, the heads snapping at the dirt. Lara draws her pistol mid-somersault, in a move she has practiced many times, lands catlike on her feet and opens fire.  
The bullets poke bloody holes into the Sphinx's breast, and each of its heads roars at her. Yet it doesn't appear seriously hurt; the beast is so large that her 9mm rounds will be no more harmful than bee stings.  
The Sphinx charges at her, and Lara runs away. She knows that she cannot possibly hope to outrun the beast, so instead she runs off to the side of the cavern and takes shelter behind one off the massive columns. The Sphinx approaches and the tentacled muzzle curls around towards her. Lara shoots it, several times.  
The beast screams, and the tentacle retracts. While Lara reloads, the Sphinx lifts up a forepaw and slams it into the column, which shakes under the impact, causing dust to fall from above.  
Lara looks up, then at the cracked stone column, and has an idea.  
Lara runs out from behind the column. The heads upon its warped tail spot her, and the Sphinx turns to pursue her. She shoots it as she runs across the cavern towards the other side, enraging the beast, and it charges at her. Lara runs at another one of the columns, then just before she reaches it, she turns away, sliding across the dirt floor as she slips behind it.  
The Sphinx, like a maddened bull, is charging too fast to stop and slams into the column with horrific force, causing the whole cavern to shake. The column cracks and small pieces of rubble fall down around Lara from above. But the column remains standing.  
The Sphinx doesn't appear harmed or even stunned from the collision. Its paws reach for her, the heads snarling for her blood, and Lara shoots them. They ignore the bullets and snap at her. Lara jumps back, still firing.  
The Sphinx slowly advances on her, unfazed by her gunfire, and Lara counts down to her last bullets. It thrusts a paw at her, and Lara flips sideways, just avoiding it. But now the beast is almost on her. She won't be able to avoid it again.  
Lara looks up at the Sphinx and sees that the rear half of its body, with the trio of fanged heads on its tail, is level with the damaged column.  
Lara concentrates, takes aim with both her pistols, and fires.  
The bullets slam into the heads on the beast's warped tail. These heads are smaller than those upon its limbs, and the bullets hit first one, then the other, then the third. The Sphinx howls and swipes at her clumsily, but Lara ducks under the blow.  
The tail, the heads upon it blinded by Lara's bullets, whips around crazily. It slams into the damaged column, cracking it further. It then hits the column again, and again, and again.  
Lara races into the middle of the cavern, and the Sphinx turns after her. Lara turns to face it, and shoots it with the last of her ammunition.  
The Sphinx paces toward her, rears up above her, and prepares to slam both its fanged forepaws down onto her, ripping her to pieces.  
With a cracking sound like the world breaking open, the enormous column behind the beast begins to fall. The heads upon its hind legs shriek in fear, and the Sphinx attempts to move out of the way; but it is too large, too slow, too late.  
The column crashes down upon the Sphinx's back, crushing it to the floor and shattering its spine.  
Lara, being smaller and faster, manages to dive out of the way in time and avoids the falling rubble. Coughing from the dust and wiping tears from her eyes, she turns back to see the Sphinx crushed under tons of rock. Only its tentacled muzzle and one of its paws can be seen. The tentacle twitches feebly, and the heads hiss at her, and then they fall still.  
The Black Sphinx is dead.  
Lara pants to regain her breath, then reloads and holsters her pistols. She stares at the corpse of the beast, at its horrific nature and considers the awful, unspeakable truths implied by its very existence. And then she sniffs.  
"Thing Man Was Not Meant to Know, my aristocratic arse!"  
Then she turns round and walks away, heading towards the back of the cavern.  
  
Lara stands before the cavern's exit, a huge portal twice her height and wide enough for a dozen elephants to pass through side-by-side. It is dark on the other side, though not so dark as that of the aperture through which the Sphinx came.  
A faint glow appears on the other side, quickly growing brighter. Lara runs off to the side of the cavern, hides in the corner where the shadows are darkest, and watches the portal closely.  
The light grows brighter, and two inhuman creatures enter the cavern. They stand tall and walk like men, but where human heads should be they instead possess the heads of beasts. One of them bears the head of a jackal, its muzzle sniffing the air as it walks. The other has a great serpent extending from its neck, which weaves about constantly. Yet somehow they fail to sense her. Lara's stomach churns when she sees them, but she'd been half-expecting it, and her grip on sanity remains firm.  
While the hybrid creatures walk over to the collapsed column in the distance, Lara sneaks behind them and passes through the portal. There is a great pit on the other side, with stairs carved into the sides, heading down. From the bottom of the pit, Lara can hear chanting.  
As she begins to descend the stairs, she hears a mournful keening go up from behind her, as the hybrids discover the corpse of the Sphinx.  
  
Lara stands on a balcony above another large subterranean chamber. Below her, a great army of the awful composite beasts gathers in a militaristic formation. They all face the back of the chamber where two people, a man and a woman, are seated on a pair of golden thrones.  
"All praise to Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh!" chants the army, in perfect unison. "All praise to Nitocris, the Ghoul Queen!"  
The army continues to chant in similar vein for several minutes, until the man, who Lara assumes to be Nephren-Ka, stands and holds up his hands for silence.  
"The time is almost upon us. Egypt and all the world shall soon be ours. The race of Man will be sent to the bottom of the food chain, while the beasts feed on their flesh, and our gods feed on the souls. Now, it is time for the ceremony, the rite which will bring Death to the world, and usher in the age of Chaos."  
"Ia! Nyarlathotep!" the army roars.  
"The Black Sphinx is dead." Nephren-Ka shouts, a statement which causes Lara to start in amazement. How could he possibly know that already? "Thus, the first part of the sacrifice is complete. Fortunately, the second sacrifice has been kind enough to join us of her own free will, isn't that right, Miss Croft?"  
Nephren-Ka lifts his head and looks directly up at her, as does his queen. The entire army also turns to glare at her. Lara jumps back from the edge of the balcony, then hears a hissing behind her. She swings round, to see the two hybrids that she had evaded earlier now standing before her. They are armed with spears, and level them at her. Lara realises that they had probably seen her after all.  
Lara draws her guns and shoots them, punching holes in their faces. But they do not die, or even appear hurt. The jackal-headed hybrid swings its spear at her, and she blocks it with her arm, wincing with the impact. She then kicks it in the chest, driving it back. The serpent-headed hybrid then thrusts at her with the butt of its spear. Lara dodges and kicks this one too.  
As the second hybrid is being driven back, its serpent head stretches out and bites her, its fangs sinking into her neck. As it falls away, she shoots them both again, then runs past them back towards the stairs, finally realising that she may be in over her head.  
But before she makes it three paces, she begins to feel dizzy and her vision blurs.  
On her fifth pace, she falls to the floor, unconscious.  
  
Lara awakens face-down on a hard stone surface. Her head pounds at her and her muscles ache. As memory of what happened rushes back into her brain, she attempts to struggle to her feet, but the effort proves too much and she sinks back down.  
She feels rough clawed hands grip her arms and shoulders and drag her upright. With a great surge of willpower, she opens her eyes and lifts up her head.  
In front of her stand Nephren-Ka and Nitocris. Lara finds that she is being held by two of the hybrid creatures, while the rest of the army hisses and snarls behind her.  
Lara studies the two ancient rulers. Nephren-Ka appears perfectly human, and would seem quite handsome under other circumstances. He is a tall and slim man in fine Egyptian robes. His face is young but bears a small and well-groomed beard. The only inhuman thing about him is his eyes, which bear the glint of incomprehensible evil.  
The Ghoul Queen Nitocris, on the other hand, could never be mistaken for a mortal woman. She is dressed in a slim Egyptian robe that does little to hide her body, and where the left side of her body appears quite human, the right side is dried and desiccated, like that of a centuries-old corpse.  
Nephren-Ka steps forward. "The stars are not yet right," he speaks, his voice like that of a closing tomb, "but I tire of waiting. Even the patience of an immortal has its limits. Once the gods have been called into this existence, they will move the stars themselves in the sky, and then the Age of Man will come to an end, and the Age of Chaos will begin. Anything is possible for the Outer Gods."  
Nitocris speaks. "The gods may not enter our universe freely, not until the stars are right. But they can be summoned, and if the sacrifice is great enough, they can be summoned in their true form, rather than that of a shadowy avatar. The Sphinx was the first sacrifice, a favoured of Nyarlathotep, a being of incarnate power. The second sacrifice is you, the mortal who slew the Sphinx, a champion, a hero."  
Nephren-Ka reaches into his robes and draws out a long wavy-bladed knife. "I knew you were coming, of course." He tells her. "You would have known too, had you had the courage to pull back the curtain on the Walls of Truth. Not that I need examine those Walls, for I am the one who painted them, copying the visions granted me by the Great Messenger Nyarlathotep. Once I sacrifice your heart to him, he will carry our message to the gods, and they will come forth in all their power and majesty, to lay waste to this entire universe, and all that lives within." As he draws out the knife, his robes twitch aside, revealing Lara's guns tucked into a pocket. "Only his devoted shall be spared, to rule over the ruins."  
Nephren-Ka lifts up the knife, to sink into her breast. At that moment, as adrenaline surges into her veins and washes away the after- effects of the poison, Lara kicks up high, slamming her boot into the jackal-headed hybrid holding her right arm. Though she cannot hurt it, she succeeds in forcing it back and releasing her arm. She then hauls her left arm forward and slams her knee into the chest of the serpent-hybrid. This one also releases her and falls back.  
Nephren-Ka stabs at her, but she blocks with crossed arms, then lifts up her leg and kicks him in the groin. The Black Pharaoh curls up with a very-mortal groan, and as he does so Lara reaches into his robes and grabs her pistols. She then aims one of them at him and pulls the trigger.  
A bloody hole opens in his chest and Nephren-Ka falls down onto his back, dead.  
Lara aims one pistol at Nitocris, and points the other at the army. All of them stand frozen in shock, staring at the corpse of the Black Pharaoh. Nitocris lifts her head and glares at Lara, her face twisting with rage, the desiccated half cracking under the strain.  
"You will die slowly and excruciatingly for that." The Ghoul Queen hisses. "And when I sacrifice your heart and soul to the gods, they will return my Pharaoh to me, and we will destroy this world."  
Nitocris advances on her, heedless of the pistol aiming at her. Lara fires, and punches a hole in the Queen's breast. But there is no blood, and Nitocris does not fall. Lara aims both pistols at her and shoots her five more times. The Queen's body becomes riddled with holes, yet she continues to advance. Lara quickly holsters her pistols.  
Nitocris throws a fist at Lara's face, which she blocks with her wrist. The Queen then kicks at her side, which Lara also blocks with her forearm. Lara responds with a punch of her arm, which Nitocris turns aside, then slams her palm into Lara's stomach, driving the wind out of her and forcing her back.  
While Lara struggles to draw breath, Nitocris slowly advances on her, with the army of hybrids standing well back. "You fight well, mortal, but I am an immortal warrior-queen. You may know how to fight, but I have been killing for over seven thousand years. I need no weapons to take your life."  
Nitocris aims a kick at Lara's head, and Lara dives out of the way and rolls to her feet. Nitocris advances and launches a series of punches and kicks at Lara, most of which she barely manages to block. Nitocris then drops and attempts to sweep Lara's out from under her, and Lara backflips out of the way, landing beside the corpse of the Black Pharaoh.  
Nitocris charges at her and attacks. Lara manages to block three more punches and a kick, but then Nitocris manages to punch through her guard and grip her round the throat, choking her.  
"First, I will take your eyes." Nitocris hisses, as she lifts up her desiccated clawed hand in front of Lara's face.  
But then the Ghoul Queen's eyes widen in shock. Her grip weakens and she releases her hold on Lara. She then staggers back and looks down, at the wavy-bladed knife sticking from her breast, the blade sunk into her black heart.  
"No." Nitocris whispers. "The sacrificial energies.it had to be you.the gods hunger for life.death cannot."  
The Ghoul Queen sinks to her knees, stares sightlessly with an expression of unspeakable horror, then crumples to the floor and does not move again.  
Lara turns to face the army of hybrid monsters, to find the floor of the enormous chamber strewn with hundreds of inhuman corpses.  
Lara gazes around the chamber. The archaeological secrets she has discovered on her trek here will astound her peers and revolutionize her career. Most of the treasures are too heavy or too fragile for her to carry away. Nevertheless, now that she has cleared the way, she can return with a larger expedition to fully unearth and excavate these catacombs.  
As she examines the chamber, she discovers a small door off to the side. She passes through and discovers a small but ornate study. There is a table in the middle, and the shelves on the wall are stacked with scrolls and parchments. Lara walks over to the table and closes the book. It is bound in a strange leathery hide, and on the cover is an image of a hideous visage, screaming in either terror or exultant joy; Lara cannot tell which.  
Lara opens the book to the first page, and begins to read. The words are in an ancient form of Arabic, and she concentrates on mentally translating it.  
The book of the howlings of the demons of the desert, containing the history of that which came before men.  
Lara slams the book closed. My god. She thinks to herself. The Necronomicon!  
Lara realises that this book is worth more than anything she has ever discovered thus far throughout her entire career. But she also knows that the secrets it is rumoured to contain could send the whole world into madness. She has dedicated her life to bringing ancient secrets into the light, but if ever there was a Thing That Man Was Not Meant to Know, the Necronomicon was it.  
Lara struggles against her baneful curiosity, but to no avail. She re- opens the book, this time to the page upon which it had been open when she found it.  
It is random, twisted gibberish! Even though she can translate it into a sort of English, though she is careful not to pronounce so much as a single syllable aloud, still it makes no sense. Prayers to gods and concepts that cannot exist (such as the god of the shadows of rapists' regrets), the sacrifice of things that can never be (such as the living dead god and the heart of a dream), descriptions of thought processes that only a madman would understand. Yet the topic on this page is clear - it is a ritual to summon the full power of the Crawling Chaos into the world.  
Lara closes the Necronomicon, shuddering. She cannot allow this book to be unleashed upon the world. Though it goes against everything she stands for, she resolves to burn the book and all the secrets it contains. She digs out a lighter from her pocket, and holds the flame to the corner of the book.  
To no avail. The Necronomicon simply refuses to burn.  
Though it pains her to do so, Lara pulls out several of the parchments from the shelves and makes a small fire with them. Then she places the Necronomicon into the fire. But although the scrolls are reduced to ash, the book itself remains undamaged.  
Lara curses. Left with no choice, she packs the Necronomicon into her backpack, intending to remove it from this place and find some way to destroy it. She then turns and leaves the study, returning to Nephren-Ka's audience chamber.  
Lara sees the staircase along the back wall leading up to the balcony and out of this chamber. She begins picking her way over the first of the inhuman bodies, then hears a strange tearing noise from behind her.  
Lara lets out a sigh, draws her pistols, and turns round.  
Nephren-Ka's corpse begins to shake and convulse. His skin churns and ripple, and as Lara watches, his stomach rips in two. Great bloody tears appear all across his body as something begins to tear its way out from within. The flesh over his arms split open, revealing black clawed limbs. His face ripples and tears, and a blood-red tentacle streams out of his mouth, ripping away his face. His robes and skin split apart as his body grows to tremendous size, and the organ at his groin lengthens and stiffens, becoming a third leg.  
The monster slowly rises to its feet and towers over Lara, and she stares at the twenty-foot tall beast with three legs and a blood-red tentacle for a face. Though eyeless, the head turns towards her and Lara senses a malevolent, unspeakable intelligence, knowing that it can sense her perfectly. She recalls the vague, allegorical descriptions of the Great Beast hinted at in her studies of De Vermis Mysteriis and similar tomes, and knows that she faces Death itself.  
Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.  
Despair washes over her at the sight of the monster, the inhuman god given form, and her sanity begins to crumble. Its body is made of nothing even resembling flesh, it ripples and warps crazily, and it has the shape of a madman's doodling. No sane man or woman could possibly worship a thing like this.  
But Lara has never given in to despair, and she's not about to do so now.  
She opens fire, and the bullets smack into its chest. But there is no blood, and the monster does not appear harmed in the least. Nyarlathotep advances on her, crushing the bodies of its minions under its clawed feet, causing the chamber to shake with every tread. Despite its insane three- legged anatomy, the monster appears perfectly balanced, with no sign of clumsiness. Its tentacle shivers with anticipation, and its claws flex eagerly.  
It stamps down at her with one heel, and Lara just manages to dive out of the way, rolling to her feet. She is then forced to backflip over its enormous clawed hand as it reaches for her. Knowing she can't possibly fight it, Lara does the only smart thing. She runs away.  
She turns and races towards the stairs at the back of the chamber as fast as she can. Nyarlathotep charges after her. Lara reaches the stairs and races up them. Nyarlathotep stop at the bottom and punches its massive fist at her. Lara stops and ducks the blow, and the fist crashes into the wall, cracking it and causing dust to fall. Lara recklessly jumps over the fist and continues running to the top. Before she reaches the balcony above, she hears sickening tearing sounds from below.  
Lara turns and looks back, to see the god's chest splitting apart. Black claws shred the massive torso from within, and an enormous cat-like beast tears its way out of the monster's breast. As the cat-beast lands gracefully on the floor, the three-legged monster falls back and crashes down, dead. The cat-beast immediately begins pounding up the stairs after Lara.  
Lara reaches the balcony and turns, just as the cat-beast runs up behind her. It resembles a massive black panther, but devoid of detail. It appears to be composed of pure shadow, though it moves as no shadow should. Lara shoots it, but the bullets sink into its body with no visible effect.  
The beast pounces on her, and Lara falls back, struggling against its claws. Despite its appearance, it is clearly solid enough to kill her. It rakes at her chest, and she shoves against it with her knees, just managing to keep it from ripping out her intestines. Its fangs snap at her throat, and she desperately pushes its head away with her arms, shoving with all her strength. She rolls over and lands on top, but then the cat-beast rolls back over, straddling her once more.  
Lara manages to lift up both her knees close to her body, plant her boots against its chest, and kick out with all her strength. The cat-beast flies back, and is sent hurtling over the edge of the balcony, down to the floor of the chamber far below.  
Lara sags down, panting for breath, relieved to be alive.  
And then all the torches go out, enveloping the whole chamber in darkness.  
"Oh no." Lara whispers to herself, as she struggles to her feet, and runs along the balcony towards the next set of stairs leading up, switching on her flashlight as she does so. As she runs the stairs along the walls of the pit, she hears a flapping sound come from behind her. The sound spurs her on with a burst of fear.  
Finally she reaches to top of the pit. But all of the torches extinguished up here too, and the cavern is engulfed with darkness. From the pit, the flapping sound comes dreadfully closer, and Lara shines her flashlight back into it.  
In the yellow beam, a terrifying apparition appears. All Lara can make out of it is bat-like wings, a monstrous tail, and a terrible three- lobed burning eye. Its body makes a hissing sound as the light hits it, yet it continues to approach.  
Lara backs away as it flies up over the lip of the pit. As it flaps toward her, its eye locks with her own, and Lara's heart pounds with the strain of incomprehensible terror, building up to a cardiac arrest.  
Lara digs into her backpack with trembling fingers, pulls an object out, almost drops it, but then flicks the base.  
The flying creature screams as light from the flare washes over it. Its skin burns and hisses, and it drops to the floor, flapping weakly. Lara drops the flare beside it, keeping it covered with light, then turns and runs into the Sphinx's cavern. As she does so, she hears a tearing sound coming from behind her.  
  
For what seems an eternity, Lara runs through the catacombs, pursued relentlessly by The God With A Thousand Forms. Sometimes she manages to evade it, other times she manages to delay it, twice she even manages to destroy it. But every time she looks like she might be able to escape the monster, a new form simply tears its way out of the old and the chase is resumed.  
Finally, battered and bleeding, having been forced to fight the beast on several occasions, Lara returns to the passage of the Walls of Truth. On one wall is a red curtain that has been almost completely drawn back, revealing the intricate murals that foretold the history of the world. On the other wall, the curtain spreads out, obscuring the history of what is to come. Behind her, Lara senses the god's angry approach. She is exhausted and cannot evade it much longer. Even if she somehow manages to escape to the world above, that is no guarantee that the god will not pursue. Nyarlathotep is relentless.  
Desperate to survive, knowing her life is the least that she has to lose, Lara turns towards the left wall and draws back the rest of the curtain, from the image of herself shooting the black priest, to the end of the wall, hoping for some clue to defeat Nyarlathotep.  
On the wall, Lara sees herself defeat the Black Sphinx, she sees herself defeat the Ghoul Queen and her running battle with Nyarlathotep. But then the rest of the images make no sense. There are images of death and horror and bloody carnage, but all of them seem to take place far from Egypt, and they are impossible to understand without context. There is nothing more relevant to her battle, it does not even show whether Nyarlathotep kills her or not.  
Lara turns and backs away from the doorway, as through the doorway steps a manlike shape. It is a black shadow with no source and no discernible features. She somehow senses its rage and knows that the god has finished toying with her. She does not bother to draw her pistols, having long since run out of ammunition.  
Nyarlathotep raises a hand, and Lara screams as her entire body becomes covered in searing flames. Desperately, she staggers against the right-hand wall and pulls down the curtain, wrapping herself in the crimson velvet and smothering the flames. Lara sobs in relief, her clothes are nothing but burnt rags now, but she managed to avoid severe burns, though her skin is red raw. She stands up as she senses the gods continuing approach.  
As she does so, she glances at the wall, and sees the future.  
What she sees there drives her insane.  
Lara giggles and chants nonsense rhymes to herself as she stares at the wall, lost in its unspeakable prophetic visions. Sensing something over her shoulder, she turns and sees the shadowy figure standing before her. She giggles again and calls it silly.  
Nyarlathotep holds up its hand in a warding gesture, and Lara finds herself unable to move from the neck down. While she stands paralyzed, Nyarlathotep reaches with its other taloned hand for her heart.  
"No, you can't have my heart." Lara protests with a childlike pout. "It's mine. Go away."  
With her mind twisted to madness, her thoughts churning along new paths and new directions, Lara recalls what she read in the Necronomicon, and finally understands it, as only the truly insane could.  
Lara throws her head back and begins to chant. At the utterance of the first dread syllable, Nyarlathotep itself is paralyzed. At the completion of the first terrible word, Lara's paralysis is broken and she throws out her arms in ecstasy. She chants in a language that no human should utter, and her mind warps at the visions granted to her, and the entire universe churns and ripples around them both.  
As Lara continues to chant, Nyarlathotep's body begins to tear itself apart. Great rips appear across its shadowy form, and black light seeps out from within. With a horrid cracking noise, the god's limbs are forcefully drawn into its torso, and its head is shoved down into its neck, as Nyarlathotep folds in on itself. With a terrible, monstrous, cataclysmic, soul-searing scream, Nyarlathotep's body implodes and disappears.  
Disappointed at the loss of a playmate, Lara turns and wanders up the corridor.  
  
Lara wakes up in her bed. She looks around, recognizing her surroundings as her hotel room in Cairo. Wincing, she looks down at her body, to find herself covered in scratches and bruises and semi-severe burns. Even her clothes are rags.  
The last thing she remembers is preparing to undertake the search for the tomb of.who? Odd. She can't even remember what exactly she had been searching for.  
Hoping for a reminder, she climbs out of bed and inspects her belongings. But on the floor is a wastepaper basket, the contents of which have been set on fire. There are no other papers in the room. There is nothing else helpful, save for her backpack by the door and her familiar twin pistols, which she finds under her pillow.  
Digging through the basket, she finds a small book. The pages inside the book have been burnt to illegibility, but she can still determine that it had been a diary of some sort. Although the binding has also been severely burnt, she can still make out two words on the front cover.  
Captain Carteret.  
She searches through her backpack, but aside from her usual tomb raiding equipment, it is empty.  
Lara shrugs. She has no reason to remain in Cairo if she can't even remember what she was searching for. Perhaps there will be a clue back home, a log of her latest activities. But somehow, she senses that she had been keeping this particular quest a secret, and had made no records of it. Ah well, not even she can solve every mystery, and some things are better left undiscovered.  
Putting on a fresh set of clothes, Lara leaves the hotel room, intending to take a taxi direct to the airport and catch the first plane home.  
  
In England, in Croft Manor, Lara's butler, Winston, hears the doorbell chime and shuffles to the door. He opens it to find a man standing there with a motorcycle helmet on his head and a box in his hands.  
"Package for Ms Croft." The cyclist tells him.  
Winston signs the delivery order and takes hold of the package, closing the door behind him. The package is about a foot square and half that deep. On top of the package is a not.  
For the attention of Lara Croft. Private.  
Winston places the package with the rest of the mail awaiting Lara's return from Egypt. She can open it when she gets back.  
If I'm not mistaken, Winston thinks to himself, that package is most likely a book. 


End file.
